Pseudocode

What Does Pseudocode Mean?

Pseudocode is an informal program description that does not contain code syntax or underlying technology considerations. Pseudocode summarizes a program’s steps (or flow) but excludes underlying details.

Techopedia Explains Pseudocode

To be pseudo is to be fake. In other words, something that is pseudo is pretending that to be something it’s not. Given this, the term pseudocode makes sense – it isn’t code, but it is the starting point to what the code should look like.

System designers write pseudocode to ensure that programmers understand a software project’s requirements and align code accordingly. It can be anything from a few scribbles on a piece of paper, to detailed designs using a modeling language.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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